Digital distribution is seen as a growth industry in many sectors, but especially so in PC games where services like Valve’s Steam are gaining in popularity. The one problem with supplying games digitally is their size; with titles easily reaching multiple gigabytes of data. What that translates to is long waits for downloads to complete before you can start playing your new game.{ad}

Awomo aims to change that, however, by introducing a games service that allows you to play a game while it is still downloading. It does this by intelligently downloading the core components of the game first allowing it to run without having all the data it is shipped with. For example, a 4GB game may fit the core engine and first level of the game into 500MB. Awomo’s download of that game would therefore allow you to start playing the game once you have downloaded that first 500MB rather than the full 4GB.

What Awomo does is take the core files used to play the game, which is enough to get you up and running, and then download the rest of the content in the background … This is a super-fast way of distributing games. For the first time we have created a system that really does for games what iTunes does for music.

Awomo has now entered a limited beta status and you can sign-up for an account via their website. The first game on offer is Tomb Raider: Legend which can be downloaded for free. The beauty of the service is that even though Legend is 7.2GB you can start playing after only 652MB of that has been downloaded.

On full release Awomo intends to offer gamers both rent and buy options for their games as well as introducing a subscription option for access to a range of titles.

Matthew’s Opinion
For games that have already seen a release this is a great new feature. Rather than waiting for hours after purchase you could be playing in just a few minutes depending on the game. For new releases I think Steam has the better system, however. Steam employs a pre-load system which means if you buy a game before it is released it will be downloaded in the background on to your machine. Come release day you will be able to play it straight away as the download has already happened.

As game libraries go Awomo’s tech will come into its own. Getting access to a new game will just be quicker and therefore promote Awomo as the place to go if you want to play a game asap. They will also benefit from the ever-increasing size of games which threaten to hit 10GB before too long.

If Awomo launch and start offering a bulletproof service I don’t think it will be too long before they start receiving attention for possible acquisition. Digital game services are going to be big business in the future and Awomo’s tech offers a clear advantage (if it works as they intend). We just need to see it operating for a few months and get the reaction of gamers to see just how good it really is.